Feathery Societarian

The societarian, one of the two dominant species of the archipelago, are easily distinguishable by an extraordinary physical trait: Individuals look strikingly different from each other even within the same family, with an endless variety of possible features.
They can be divided however into five subspecies based on their skin coverage. These are the featheries, covered in plumage, furries, covered in hair, scalies with rough, sometimes hardened skin, waterland silkies with smooth, moist skin, and the segmented with hardened outsides separated by thin joints.

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Featheries resemble birds, with beaks, naked feet and hands, and long feathers in their arms resembling a wing shape.

Societarian subspecies

Biology

Physical Characteristics

As the name implies, featheries are the only subspecies covered in feathers. Additionally, they are the only ones to consistently have beaks across all phenotypes.
They are always digitigrade and have generally similar feet, though some of them have one or two of their toes pointing backwards, some have a toe rotated up with a bigger claw, while a minority have one or two toes pointing only forwards.
It is common for the males of this subspecies to be leaner, physically flamboyant and colorful compared to females.

Reproduction

Featheries reproduce between males and females and give birth to live young, generally one at a time. The babies are born covered in down which is rapidly replaced by fluffy feathers as they grow.

Social Characteristics and Cues

Featheries demonstrate affection by preening the cheeks of others with their beaks. In the case of intimate partners, they will preen each other's necks and shoulders as well.
Males are usually considered more emotional, and females more resilient.

Dhalmain Island by Naelin

Geographical distribution

Featheries are native to the Dhalmain Island, and most of them are still located there.
However, their close economic alliance to the Kingdom of Thaur made a sizeable amount of people from both nations to move between the two islands, and nowadays featheries are a very common sight in the southwestern area of Thaur, having large communities made of evenly distributed featheries and furries.

Culture

Identity

National identity

Aside of Roosters, most featheries consider themselves Dhalmanite. This is a nation proud of their immense influence on the culture of the rest of the archipelago, as things like their calendar and language have become standard use across all islands.

Religion

Symbol of Autonomism by Naelin

As most featheries are from Dhalmain, the most common religion they ascribe to is Autonomism, the belief that the natural laws of the universe had autonomy before life existed.

Florian Ley by Naelin

Clothing

Thanks to their generally standard appearance, featheries do not need for their clothing to be as highly specialized as other societarians, as the same cuts can fit the vast majority of featheries of the same size.
Their outfits usually consist of two main pieces, trousers and vests. The former use a standardised horizontal cut on the back to fit their tails, which straps above it to prevent the piece from falling. The latter never includes closed sleeves, as this makes it very uncomfortable for them to fit their longer arm feathers.

Notable Featheries

Danae by Naelin

Danae: A cartographer and scribe from Thaur, famous for being the artist behind the most widely used Map of the Haan Archipelago
Hectar Cutu: The Dhalmanite founder of Havto Caldegai's Handyfolk Warehouse, the biggest multidisciplinary workshop in the City of Endure.
Nile: A dramaturgue from Thaur
Florian Ley: A criminal from Dhalmain

Nile

Distribution of featheries in the archipelago

Classification

Dominant Species

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Societarians

Geographic Distribution

• Dhalmain Island

Related Ethnicities

• Dhalmanite

The Rooster Nation

Spread across all of the archipelago, a large diaspora of featheries of landfowl phenotypes known as the Rooster Nation have parted from the culture of their native island in many ways:
They identify their families with coloured patterns in their scarce clothing, have traditional sports and martial arts and share a unique naming convention.

Feelin Smol by Naelín